First published in 1978, An Introduction to the Golden Dawn Tarot
was the first book available that discussed solely the tarot as conceived
by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (GD). Now students of the works
of Israel Regardie, who had a great deal of input to both this book and
its corresponding "Golden Dawn Tarot" deck had a quick reference
manual for all of "Book T". "Book T" also appears
in the Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic and the Golden Dawn,
however neither of these works are known for their easy indexing.

An Introduction contains more than just the raw tables of "Book
T". The first 51 pages of this small book discusses several topics
anent the history surrounding the Golden Dawn tarot. For instance decks
produced by various members of the GD are mentioned as well as how and
often why they differ from the GD manuscripts. There is also a section
talking about the differences between "exoteric" and "esoteric"
tarot decks. More importantly, at least from the practicing magician's
point of view, there is a discussion on how the tarot can be used in ritual
and for skrying.

The majority of the book contains the information from "Book T",
which includes not only the tarot descriptions and their meanings but
also associated astrological information and the complex tarot reading
known as the Opening by Key. Also included in this work is a paper by
Mrs. Felkin, the wife of the Chief of the New Zealand Smaragdum Thalasses,
an offshoot of the original GD after its schism. The book concludes with
A.E. Waite's "Ten Card Method of Tarot - Divination", originally
published in his Pictorial Key to the Tarot and a two page recommended
reading list.

Perhaps the only thing that is disappointing about An Introduction to
the Golden Dawn Tarot is the tarot deck that Dr. Wang produced to go with
it. While the deck is accurate to the imagery of the Golden Dawn documents
the illustration and color work are lacking in brightness, making the
deck appear dull and faded. From the perspective of the GD's color theory
this will cause the tarot images to be less useful tools than they otherwise
could be. From an aesthetic perspective the deck fails to compare with
decks such as the Thoth deck designed by Aleister Crowley and painted
by Lady Frieda Harris or Sandra Tabatha Cicero's New Golden Dawn Ritual
Tarot Deck (discussed below).

Published in 1996, nearly 28 years after Robert Wang's Golden Dawn tarot
book, The New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot is the second of only three
books released to the public concerning the Golden Dawn tarot system.
Unlike Wang's work, however, the Cicero's have gone beyond the original
GD documents to create an updated tarot book and deck, which is still
based on the teachings of the Golden Dawn.

The New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot, like An Introduction
contains all of the material in "Book T" (minus the paper on
the tarot projected into a sphere, which is also missing from Wang), though
some of it has been rewritten in modern language. However, the tarot card
descriptions go beyond the simple one or two paragraphs of "Book
T" to discuss each card more in-depth. The only criticism of this
is that these added descriptions seem to apply mostly to the newer designs
developed by Mrs. Cicero and do not always apply to the GD tarot as a
whole, though the creative student should have little problem in extrapolating
from one deck to another or adding the new symbolism to his or her catalog
of symbols.

This book also contains over 70 pages dedicated solely to ritual work
and divination. Unlike in Wang, which aside from the Opening by Key only
discusses ritual work in theory, the Ciceros give examples of rituals,
divination and skrying techniques as well as the complete rubric for performing
them. The book ends with a page on the 32 paths of wisdom, a later annotation
to the Jewish Kabbalistic work the Sefer Yetzirah and a good sized
bibliography.

Along with The New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot there is a New
Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot Deck, designed and painted by Sandra Tabatha
Cicero. This deck contrasts drastically from the Wang deck. Its colors
are bright and vibrant and for the first time in a Golden Dawn deck the
flashing colors are used. These aspects add to the overall usability of
the deck for magical work. However the artwork of the deck is very stylistic,
almost cartoon-ish, in nature and may not be to everyone's liking.

Published originally in 1997 but not released until several years later,
The Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn is possibly the most impressive
of the Golden Dawn tarot books. This book is a massive volume, almost
400 pages in length on A4 size paper. Like the previous books this one
discusses all of the material in "Book T" (including a re-written
tarot and the celestial sphere paper). It also goes beyond the published
GD documents in its treatment of the cards, however it does so in a traditional
manner. Instead of creating a new version of the Golden Dawn tarot, the
Zalewskis recreate a version of the original deck, even using images from
the Smaragdum Thalasses's original tarot deck.

The tarot card descriptions within The Magical Tarot of the Golden
Dawn go far beyond the original descriptions and are often two to
three pages in length. These descriptions include previously unpublished
material from both S. L. MacGregor Mathers and various members of the
Smaragdum Thalasses's Ware Ra temple. Like in the Cicero's book a great
deal of research has been done into the history of the GD tarot and the
tarot in general. There is a great deal of new information developed by
the Zalewskis as well, as their discussion of the cards on an alchemical
level or from the point of view of both spiritual evolution and involution.

Another new feature to this book is the discussion of color and how the
GD tarot was traditionally supposed to be colored. According to the Zalewskis,
they have published for the first time the correct Golden Dawn method
for card coloring, which is apparently closer to that used in Crowley's
Thoth deck than in any other Golden Dawn based tarot. Along with
this is a printing of the four color scales as used by Ware Ra, which
different in numerous respects to those which have been printed by both
Regardie and Crowley. The final 80 or so pages discuss numerous tarot
spreads, including the Opening by Key, tarot skrying and meditation, and
the re-written Golden Dawn paper entitled "Celestial Tarot".
The tarot spreads include some spreads which are the creation of the Zalewski
and the section on mediation and skrying includes what can only be called
"tarot poems" for each of the Trump Cards. Two methods for skrying
are given in full as well as several examples of skryings already performed.
The final section, "Celestial Tarot" contains reworked diagrams
by Chris Zalewski. Unfortunately there is no bibliography, though many
of the books used for researched are mentioned in the extensive footnotes.

There are two or three critiques to be made about The Magical Tarot
of the Golden Dawn. The first of which is that, it being a work of
self-publication, the binding method is worse than usual bookbindings.
The comb binding used is inadequate for the size of the book causing the
outside pages to tear. As mentioned there is no bibliography but there
is also no index for cross-referencing. Finally there is not as yet a
tarot deck to accompany this book, though according to Mr. Zalewski one
being painted by Skip Dudchus is nearly finished.